Fresh
by holydarknessrising
Summary: A story of uneasiness and the feelings between two best friends. SoraRiku shounen-ai.
1. One

Alright, so you guys know the Tikka KH fic I've been working on? Well, this here is its counterpart, a Sora/Riku fic that fills ya on in the little things Sora and Riku did in the Tidus/Wakka fic! Isn't that great of me? The idea struck me when I was writing Chapter Two of "Smoothie" (the Tikka fic) when Riku gives Sora a look. I was like, "Hmm... If I were reading this, I would want to know why... but, this is Tidus/Wakka centric..." So then, I decided to create "Fresh" for all those Sora/Riku fans out there!

The night was warm, the moisture in the air a direct result of the tropical storms so common during the summers on the island chain. The rain began to pelt the house, flowing over the window like it would down a lazy stream, or as the tide would if it never receded.

Two boys stay up late, just talking, the TV set turned down low, just loud enough to muffle their voices from ears meaning to hear any noise they made. Their bodies sprawled on the floor, the only apparel either wore was a pair of shorts, to combat the humidity, even though both fan and airconditioner were working and on.

"Riku… What's it like?" asked the brunette, cocking his fair-skinned face towards his silver-haired companion, blue eyes gazing into aquamarine. His chest rose and fell with the rhythm of the rain, his breathing completely calm and even, though when the rain stopped its course, he still kept his breathing in the rhythm.

"What's what like Sora?" countered Riku, his breathing rhythmic as well, though the rhythm to which he adhered was offset from that of the rain and the brunette's. He had his left hand on his bare stomach, while the right was on the carpeted floor, as his forearm and elbow were propping up his upper body. He shook his head lightly, to get silver hair out of his eyes and away from his neck. It was days like this that made him wish he would cut it, but then, most days, the islands wasn't this hot.

"Never mind," said Sora bashfully, looking at his hand on the carpet, tracing the outline of the left with his right index finger. His lips were slightly pursed and his brows were furrowed in a way that indicated only slight frustration as he searched for the words to explain what he wanted to know, for the boy knew his comrade would be pressing him to know what had been on his mind.

"Sora… What's the matter? What do you want to know?" Riku cocked a silver eyebrow, a curious expression developed over many years, mainly practiced when having conversations of this type with his best friend, or when something curious would happen and they'd share a look.

"What's it like… you know… to… I don't know. I guess, what I'm trying to say is…" he cut off, still tracing his hand, now a bit more slowly going between each finger, around the curves in a manner almost sensual, though none of the boy's actions could really be described as thus; he was too pure.

"Yes?" pressed Riku, knowing full well that he would win eventually, but still, he rather enjoyed causing Sora to mull over his thoughts until he would articulate them. It actually helped their relationship to thrive, these small little pushings and pullings; Riku learned more of Sora, and Sora, in turn, learned more of the silver-headed boy whom he called the friend he liked best.

"Uh… What's it like to… No, that's not it… How do you… yes, there we go… How do you tell if you like someone?" His eyes seemed pleading as they, in their blue luminance of hope and wonderment, gazed into those of the boy sitting across from him, betwixt the brunette's body and the closet door.

Riku began to laugh, his right arm collapsing and he began to roll on the floor, his mirth so intense on wreaking havoc on his breathing. Sora smiled sheepishly down at the boy, sitting up and pulling his knees to his chin, resting his head atop them and wrapping his arms around his calves. After a few moments, Riku collected himself until his laughter was that of a few chuckles every now and then, and he looked to Sora, whose sheepishness had obviously grown into embarrassment, as his cheeks were flushed.

"Sorry, but you have to admit," noted Riku, solemnly, "it was a funny question."

"Yeah… I know, but I meant it."

"I'm not doubting that… But it's really not something I can answer for you. Everyone has different tastes, and everyone has different little ticks that tell them when they like someone."

"Oh… Okay…" Sora looked down at his toes, obviously more than embarrassed by now, though his cheeks had regained their normal coloration. He looked back to Riku, who he noticed did seem sorry for having made him feel a fool, though the mirth was still dancing in his aquamarine eyes. "Um, Riku… How do you know you like someone?"

Riku laughed slightly at this question, looking down at Sora in a "you've got to be kidding me" kind of way. "Sora, you just asked me that…"

"No, I mean. How do _you_ know that _you_ like someone?"

"Oh… I really don't know."

"Aw," said Sora, pouting, pleading to Riku with his eyes, "you _have_ to know…"

"You don't," retorted Riku, slightly aggravated. He wasn't altogether comfortable with the subject… It could let on, and… well. He wasn't ready to risk anything.

"Aw, c'mon Riku! Don't be like that… Please!" Sora was on his hands and knees now, begging to be told what he guessed to be one of Riku's innermost secrets.

"Fine." Riku's word seemed final and cold, though he hadn't meant it that way, he was just a teenager, accustomed to saying "fine" to his parents when they nagged him and prodded him, pushing him to do something he really wasn't interested in. "I guess… I guess I have to really enjoy the person's company, like they can't annoy me after spending a few hours together. And I suppose there is obviously the physical attraction, but I really don't care about that, as long as they're not fat, or horribly misshapen." Here, Sora had to giggle. "I guess the last thing," said Riku, with a smile, "is they have to be strong. Not physically, but they're heart. I'm not always the most understanding or friendliest guy, but as long as they'll stick by me, I'll like them."

Sora smiled, batting his eyelashes playfully and wringing his hands together. "Oh, Mr. Nekura," said Sora, in a mock Southern belle accent, "I do declare that you are one of the sweetest boys-" He wasn't able to finish his mockery of the Southern belle, or of Riku for that matter, because the silver-haired teen had tackled him, and had his neck in the crook of his right arm.

"Say it!" he demanded, his grip around the boy's head firm enough to keep it there, but gentle enough not to harm him.

"Never!"

"Say it!" ordered Riku again, squeeze just a little bit harder. It wasn't long before Sora caved.

"Okay, okay! Mercy!"

Upon the brunette's cry, Riku released him, laughing as Sora shook his head like a dog, darting an evil look in his direction.

"Sora, that look makes me feel like a monster!" joked Riku.

Sora snorted. "You should… So… What're we gonna do now? It's," he looked to the clock on his desk, reading the time and doing a double-take. "It's ninety-two one! How is that possible!"

Riku had his turn to snort, though it was followed by laughter. The boy picked up the clock, turning it around until it was right-side-up. "It's one fifty-six, dunderhead."

"Oh… Still, what're we going to do?"

Riku shrugged. "We've done everything I can think of." Though his mind did see things a little differently than his statement.

"Me too," mumbled Sora. "Maybe we should just get some shut-eye?"

"Sounds good to me," Riku agreed, hopping onto Sora's bed and stretching out.

"Hey!" cried an indignant fourteen-year-old. "That's my bed!"

"And it's queen-size, you girl!" Riku rolled over on the bed, beginning to fall asleep on top of the fluffy mattress, not under the covers for the heat of the night.

"I'm not a girl, I just enjoy the luxuries of life…" mumbled Sora, turning off the light, then the TV, before getting onto the bed and falling asleep on the side opposite his best friend.

HA! I bet you guys think there's going to be lemon, but guess what? THERE ISN'T! I'm going to make you suffer with tension, but all this is going to be is fluff! MWAHAHAHAHA! Also, look for chapter two of this coming soon!


	2. Two

The morning sunlight streamed through the windows, and all signs of the night's storms had dissipated. Outside, people were leaving for the marina, ready to take the ferries, more common here than the shuttles were on the mainland, to the other islands in their chain, going to work for the day. Those that owned local businesses, however, were still banging about in their houses. It was such a bang, that woke Riku from his slumber.

Aquamarine eyes fluttered open, finding themselves staring into the closed eyelids fringed with black lashes in front of him. He jumped back a little, startled at his close proximity to his friend, and this jump allowed him to realize that his arm was around the brunette's waist, Sora's hand on his elbow. Blushing, Riku removed his best friend's hand, sneaking off of the bed and walking over to the window, in time to see his father head down the street in his ancient car, a "classic" he called it.

A slight moan made the silver-haired youth turn round, noticing that Sora fidgeted, his arms rising over his head and his mouth opening wide. The younger boy yawned and the blinked sleepily, looking around for Riku and apparently not spotting him. Sora sat up, pivoting his body around to gaze upon his room.

"Riku?" he asked of a chair, and Riku laughed at him. Sora always appeared like a drunken ferry worker when he first awoke. It wasn't until his two bowls of sugar-laden cereal, a banana, and orange juice that he was awake.

"No, I'm over here," said Riku, gently, waving slightly at the fourteen-year-old sitting on his bed.

Sora jumped, turning to look at his friend and shrieking slightly in the process. "Jeez, Riku! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?" Sora stood, a slightly angry expression on his face, his fists clutched indignantly.

"No. Trying to make you look less drunk. Oh… By the way, what qualities do I share with that chair?" Riku waved to it for emphasis, smirking at Sora in the way he so often did. He knew that at times, this expression and his teasing could hurt the boy, but he'd never meant any of his words to be taken in a hurting way. Sora was sensitive, and Riku wasn't always, nor did he always remember it, but he did care for his best friend very deeply.

"… Shut up." Sora stretched each of his calves, then his arms and his torso, and finally his thighs before turning to Riku and smiling. "I'm hungry."

"What am I supposed to do about it?"

"Sora, Riku!" cried a man's voice from downstairs, "breakfast is ready!"

"Nothing," said Sora simply, pulling on a shirt before opening the door and practically flying downstairs to the kitchen. Riku shook his head in a manner that seemed to be in awe of the brunette's ferocious appetite. He pulled on his shirt and followed downstairs, but at a much more leisurely pace.

As Riku arrived in the kitchen, he saw Sora already voraciously attacking a stack of pancakes, Sora's father, Taikai, looking at his son in mortified awe. "Don't you wanna slow down a little?…" Taikai noticed that Riku had entered and smiled warmly in the boy's direction, bowing slightly to him. Riku returned the bow and sat at the table next to Sora, feeling his own gaze being pulled, as if magnetically, to watch as the pancakes disappeared.

"Riku, how many for you?" asked the thirty-six-year-old man who stood before him, an sky-blue apron tied around his waist, the bib tied around his neck, and a spatula in his right hand (the left was covered with a pale yellow oven mitt.) He never broke his gaze into Riku's eyes with his own of ocean blue, like his son, and ignored the brunette's pleas for more pancakes by means of lifting his plate to various heights in front of his father and dashing around to different points in front of the golden-blonde.

"Um… six?" asked Riku, not sure if he wanted that many, but knowing full well that what he couldn't finish, Sora could and would, gladly.

Sora's father placed the amount onto Riku's plate, handing it to him and finally accommodating his own child, who he had to slap on the wrist with a spatula for trying to eat every pancake on the platter from which they were being served.

"Thank you, Mr. Kashoku," said the silver-headed teen politely, picking up a jar of syrup on the table and pouring a slight amount over his stack of flapjacks. He used both fork and knife, to cut each pancake into bite-size pieces before putting them into his mouth, chewing with his lips together.

"You're welcome, Riku," said the blonde man, sitting down opposite his son and his son's friend, beginning to eat with manners slightly less perfected than Riku's.

Sora, on the other hand, was using both hand and fork, globbing huge amounts of sweet and sticky maple syrup onto his breakfast, shoveling the food into his mouth and chewing so that the masticated pancakes were visible throughout the island chain. He finally finished he second stack, of ten pancakes, and then guzzled down a glass of milk, followed by a glass of orange juice. Riku had barely finished the second pancake in his stack.

"So," began Taikai Kashoku, "what are you two boys up to today?"

"I don't know," said Riku, not noticing that Sora had just stolen, and eaten, his third pancake. "We haven't really talked about it."

"Yeah," agreed Sora, stealing another of Riku's pancakes, again without notice, and chomping down on it. "Prob'ly- grmph, mmph- whatever everyone else is- glmph, ymmph- doing."

Riku finished his third pancake, though it was the fifth in his stack, and took a sip of his orange juice, turning to Sora. "Do you want the last one? I'm full."

Sora nodded, grabbing the plate and inhaling the last of his best friend's breakfast. He then licked all the syrup off of the plate. "Thanks," he said, his mouth and face covered in syrup and dough.

The boy's father and Riku began to laugh.

"What?" asked Sora, slightly sheepishly, "is there something on my face?"

Riku nodded and watched as Sora ran to the bathroom, a moan of embarrassment issuing forth from the general vicinity.

"Mr. Kashoku," said Riku, turning to face the blonde man, "where's Mrs. Kashoku?"

"She went to Carmina this morning, to visit her sister. Why?"

"I was just wondering, normally she does the cooking, and you're normally gone by now."

Taikai nodded and grinned slightly at the silver-haired boy, sighing ever so slightly. "My two weeks notice with the firm went into effect today, er… I mean, the two weeks are up," said the apparently resigning lawyer. "They were going to transfer me to the mainland office, and I just couldn't do that to my family. Elise's family lives here, as does mine, and Sora has such good friends. We couldn't bare to leave. These islands are our home."

Riku smiled, nodding appreciatively. "Thanks."

"For what?" Sora's father was puzzled, cocking an eyebrow at Riku's statement.

"I wouldn't want to lose Sora."

"Oh," Taikai smiled. "Well, how about you go take a shower. Your mother would kill me if I let you go out smelling like you do," teased the man.

Riku got up from his seat and began to take his plate to the sink, but was stopped by a strong hand on his forearm. "Don't worry about it." Taikai took the plate from him and cleared up the table, beginning to do the dishes, and Riku headed off to the bathroom, which he noticed Sora had left. He took his shower and changed his clothes, drying his hair and brushing his teeth before returning to Sora's room, in which he found the brunette already ready.

"You take forever," Sora stated nonchalantly, looking at Riku through squinted eyes as he was upside down and looking through his legs into the sunlight.

"I just make sure I'm clean," replied Riku, gently kicking Sora on the rear so that he would plop over onto the floor. The brunette's weight shifted, just as Riku had anticipated, causing him to topple over, rolling across the room until he bumped into his desk.

Sora sat up, rubbing the back of his head, which had hit the metal pole of the leg of the desk frame. He closed his left eye, looking at Riku with the right, and stuck out his tongue. "Nyah… So… Whaddya wanna do today?"

"The same thing we do every day, Sora… And you know what this is?"

Sora looked pensive for a moment, looking up to the ceiling and slightly poking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth. His thoughtfulness soon turned into a blank stare and he turned back to Riku. He grinned, scratching the back of his head. "I haven't the foggiest."

Riku sighed, placing a hand over his eyes. "Well… To be perfectly honest, neither do I. Which is why we're going to go out and see what everyone else is doing."

Sora smiled, nodding his head in a manner that indicated it sounded good to him. "Sounds like a plan!" The boys stood up and began their trek to the outside world from Sora's bedroom, down the stairs, through the living room, down the hall, and out the front door. Riku lingered on the porch, his eyes getting used to the sunlight, but Sora had already run ahead onto the sidewalk, looking around for one of their many companions. Soon, he spotted one run of from the house across the street.

"Hey Tidus!"

"Hey Sora," replied the blonde in a friendly manner, smiling and waving.

"You spent the night at Wakka's?"

"Yeah, my dad left again."

"Oh… Well, I bet you guys had fun! Me an' Riku sure did!"

Riku picked that moment to walk up and join the two teenagers holding the conversation, and Wakka arrived shortly after him, red hair swaying slightly with each step, a rather comical sight. Greetings were exchanged, as was a general lack of ideas for activity, when a high-pitched voice was hear.

"Hey guys!"

Riku, recognizing it instantly, raised a hand to his eyes, placing thumb and index finger on them, shaking his head ever so slightly. "Great, just who we need to come into this conversation."

"Riku," chided Sora, "that's not very nice. Selphie's our friend!"

"Yeah Sora, but she'll have us getting makeovers or manicures or something…"

"Maybe she just wants to get ice cream?" suggested the brunette innocently, his always trusting and cheerful optimism surfacing at the right moments.

"And that's just what we need, Selphie on a sugar high…"

A blue convertible pulled up to the curb, shining in the island sunlight and three girls sat inside, two in very close resemblance, and one who was obviously unrelated to the other two.

"Hey guys!" said Katie, Selphie's older sister, who was the one driving the car. "We were going to the mall on Carmina, you wanna come?"

Tidus looked dumbstruck. "You're _driving _to the mall?"

Everyone laughed, Sora and Riku so emphatically that they fell on the ground, rolling about in the grass clutching their sides for the pain of the sharp intakes of breath. Instantly the blonde's face was crimson, a blush rushing from his neck to his ears. Wakka apparently noticed, for he put his arm protectively around the youngest boy and explained his thought process.

"Me and Tidus, this morning we saw a show about this new car that could turn into a speed boat, right brudda? An' since we've never seen a car like this," he patted the azure auto's hood with his free hand, "he must of thought it was one of them."

The laughter had finally subsided, and Riku exchanged a glance with Sora. "It's no wonder, this car is from the mainland," explained Selphie's sister in a nonchalant manner.

Instantly, the chipper young girl chimed in. "Yeah, our dad just got back from his business trip to the mainland. He got Katie this car, but all I got was a new wardrobe!" As she finished her statement, her voice transformed into a childish whine all to typical of girls, like Selphie, who had everything.

Riku rolled his eyes and sighed, Sora catching this and nodding. At times, their young female companion was trying, with her particularly strong feeling of endless want, but other times she really was great to have around. Especially when she was treating them to ice cream.

Kairi giggled from the back seat, "So, d'you guys wanna come with us or not?"

Sora nodded, "Yeah, but I have to go inside to get my wallet."

Riku laughed as the brunette ran into his house. Sora was always forgetting something. He reappeared and began to lock the front door, but then, remembering that his father was inside, unlocked it and ran to the group of teenagers. He practically leapt into the back seat next to Kairi, and Riku, feeling a slight feeling of unease and jealousy, climbed in after him. They all expectantly looked at Tidus and Wakka.

"So, are you guys coming?" asked Selphie, apparently impatient.

Tidus looked at them, his blush deepening. "Uh, no… I really don't want to." He turned to Wakka, "But you can go if you want to."

Wakka smiled, squeezing Tidus in a way barely noticeable, but Riku did notice. He looked to Sora again, but apparently, his best friend was so intent on talking to Kairi that he didn't notice him.

"Nah, I got enough clothes, CDs, video games… There's nothing I need. You guys go ahead, and have a good time, ya!"

The car began to speed away down the block and all the children inside of it, except for Katie who was driving, waved goodbye to their two companions, who were quickly becoming sticks against the horizon as the car entered the marina. Katie drove onto the ferry, and most of them piled out of the car.

Riku walked off to lean against the railing, gazing off into the sea. He didn't even hear footsteps behind him.

"So," said Sora quietly, leaning next to Riku, though he had his back to the languid waves, "why do you think they didn't wanna come?"

"It's obvious… Remember, Tidus' mom was killed in a ferry accident…"

"Oh yeah… So Wakka stayed so he wouldn't be alone… He's a good friend."

"A friend? I think he's more than that… Or at least, he _wants _to be."

Sora looked to Riku with a puzzled expression on his face. "Wha…?"

"Didn't you notice the look I gave you when he put his arm around him?"

"Yeah, but…"

"Sometimes, you're really dense, Sora… Wakka likes Tidus, it's why he sticks up for him all the time, and why he lets him come to his house at all hours of the night when his dad leaves."

"But, how can you tell?"

"Just… forget it, okay?"

"Okay… But I'm tellin' you, this isn't gonna be easy to forget."

"And why not?"

"Because… I never knew that it was okay…"

"What was okay?"

"For guys to like guys…"

**Alright, so there you have it, chapter two in the epic story of "Fresh!" Please read and review, it helps ferries get to islands quicker.**


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